Suicide Awareness Training

Thoughts of suicide can happen to anyone. That’s why it’s important to give students, staff and faculty the skills to identify when someone may be thinking about suicide and connect them to support.  

In 2023-2024, Health & Wellness worked to expand the community of people at U of T able to support those who may be thinking about suicide. It offered two trainings for the university community to become more suicide aware, both developed by an evidence-based suicide prevention organization, LivingWorks. 

START is a 90-minute online training module developed by LivingWorks that teaches participants to recognize when someone is thinking about suicide and how to effectively engage them and connect them to support. In 2023-2024, Health & Wellness provided access to this training to 469 students, staff and faculty. 

Health & Wellness also made in-person suicide prevention training more available to the university community by having an in-house safeTALK facilitator, as of Fall 2023. safeTALK is an in-person suicide prevention training that also teaches participants to recognize and support people thinking about suicide. In 2023-2024, 91 students, staff and faculty received safeTALK training from Health & Wellness. 

Thanks to these trainings, many students, staff and faculty are better able to keep each other safe.